On Your Marks. . .

The first thing to do when a fight looks ready, is to open the rear doors and pop the brake. The sound of the brake let’s everyone know we aren’t moving. The rear door open gives an out to one of the people in the argument. Since impatience is usually the prevailing mood, one of the party leaves. If they don’t, I can ask one of the folks to come up to sit by me. Or state there is another coach in a few minutes, and you might find this to be a more comfortable ride.

All in all, I have to check my mental state and ask myself am I being of service to those in the coach, or do I have an agenda based on some sort of fear about what I think may or may not happen. But a word of advice: Don’t feed the pigeons. That is, don’t feed into a senseless argument. Do not respond to the Borg. Resistance is futile.

As time has given me insight, I do have an intuition about how far people are traveling on the coach. I can spot the problem child before they board. And I can guess where they will most likely get off. Their destination on the Mission is: 16th Street. A rush to the door usually results when they see their dealer on a nearby street. “Is this an emergency?” I ask. When they shout, “Yes!” I can use the rules to my advantage, and get rid of them, being careful there is no threat of an oncoming skater or cyclist. This impatience energy is one full of mishap and accident. By asking them to come to the front door, I interrupt that energy and make it safer. But only if getting them off the coach will improve the mood of the coach of everyone else riding. It is when the request for a back door is out of synch with the lights and the traffic, that I move the coach forward, a little bit, to bring the doors to a safe place while signaling to traffic behind me I am not moving away.

Usually people get loudest before they depart. If they are arguing when they get on, I have to let it settle right then and there, or avoid them getting on in the first place. I have learned when the music or the voices get the loudest it is either a cry for help, or a deep need to be heard. Or a revolutionary protest and rage against the machine, in this case, the Municipal Railway, for which gratitude has been lost. We now return you to The Art of Driving a Bus, already in progress!